benfot

Mate obviously have a good look at the weather forecast before heading out, but if you keep your radio on 88 they usually broadcast storm warnings etc.

Mate posted a few details of our fishing adventures down there a few weeks ago. http://fishraider.com.au/Invision/index.ph...mp;#entry288518 Just make sure you have a proper map of the marine park cause a reasonable amount of the bay in and around the northern side/north head is out of bounds, and the marine parks guys have been down there issuing fines recently. Good luck! We had a couple of pretty decent days out.

Mate the wind down there is almost always a problem. Usually the nor-easter is blowing pretty strongly at this time of year and it makes it pretty choppy pretty quickly. The best fishing weather seems to be when a LIGHT southerly is blowing... We've been out fishing on the northern side of the Bay before when a serious southerly came in. Took us something like two hours to get back across to the ramp at Murray's (and we've got a 4.5m 70hp so not absolutely tiny) and was at times quite frightening. One guy went up a wave and only had his motor left in the water at one stage - said it was 50/50 which way he fell. Luckily he was ok and had the Coast Guard come out from Creswell to escort the smaller boats back in. Certainly have to be more careful in southerly storms down there than in the harbour. But has been good fishing recently down there...!

Yeh mate, we were staying down there for a couple of weeks. Guess you could drive down for the day but usually takes at least 2 1/2 hrs so bit of a mission. But obviously there's far less boat traffic than in the harbour (and a fair few of the boats head out anyway) so much less need to get out early. Fishing seems to be better from bout 9am onwards anyway, except maybe for squid. Can't think of many nicer places to fish. And there's so many fish would almost certainly be worth the effort!

Headed out with my dad from Murray's at about 6am on Wed. The perpetual nor easter had finally stopped (light southerly was blowing) so was nice fishing conditions for the day... Caught a squid off the boat ramp (to add to the frozen one we'd caught the night before) as well as plenty of yellowtail. So with plenty of fresh bait headed over to the bombie off long nose point to have a crack. Passed loads of dolphins and penguins on the way across the bay and caught a small legal snapper pretty quickly. Was a bit slow til around 10am but after a brief chat to the guy in the marine parks boat managed to suss out where all kings were hanging around... And the fun began! Landed a decent king on a whole dead yakka fished near the bottom first. Could see them in and around the big schools of baitfish and all around the boat. Ended up landing about five I think, on dead yakkas and squid as well as on 5-inch clear/sparkly stick baits. Seemed to be taking juts about anything we put in front of them. Saw one decent king cruising past the boat and dropped a whole squid head near it... turned around straight away and smashed the bait about 2 metres from the boat! Sadly busted us off pretty quickly though. Most of the fish were caught in about 5 - 12 metres of water. All landed were rats but got busted off by one or two reasonable fish - pretty much inevitable in such shallow water with a reefy bottom on lightish gear I guess. Anyway, was a top day out. Plenty of great fish but no kingies for dinner unfortunately! Cheers Ben Almost there at about 63cm... Certainly was a healthy fish. Caught off the bottom on a whole dead yakka. Caught off the bottom on a whole dead yakka. Caught on a squid strip. Caught with a stick bait... Wasn't busting up on the surface, but there were loads of them just cruising around the baitfish so thought we'd try our luck!

Add me plus one please guys. Cheers Ben

Thanks for that mate. Do you reckon tossing lures at the markers is the best bet or live baiting, using unweighted squid strips, etc. Cheers Ben

Thanks heaps for all your suggestions. Much appreciated. I think I'll have a go with some smaller plastics/metals and some unweighted bait as well. I'll try working the small stick baits slowly but assume you have to retrieve the metals pretty fast to keep them on the surface? And with the peeled prawns/squid etc, are you just casting them out and letting them sink through the schools? Thanks again. Cheers Ben.

Hi all Have enjoyed reading everyone's posts for a while and finally got around to registering the other day. Had an awesome day out on the water on Weds (7/1) but not much luck with the kings so thought I'd see if I could get some help... Was fishing mostly from the harbour bridge down to Bradleys head/Point Piper and saw literally thousands of kingies. We threw stick baits of just about every size and colour but hardly got any hits. We had a brownish 9 inch plastic which would get followed by at least five kings on almost every cast but when they got near the boat they'd just let it go... Also tried a variety of metals and only got one hit. Pretty similar story when we tried trolling... Seemed like everyone else was having the same problems as us. In the whole morning we only saw one guy land one king, and he was using fly gear. Next time we thought we'd try even smaller plastics and hopefully they'll get more attention. I think I read about someone having some success with unweighted prawns but if anyone has any other ideas that'd be sensational. Not even sure what they were chasing as couldn't see many baitfish and there wasn't much seagull action so almost seemed as though they were just mucking about! Makes it hard to choose your lure if you don't know what they're after... Anyway, would be awesome to get some advice from anyone who's managed to solve the problem. Cheers.